Power Women: Sejal Patel of Plantkos On How To Successfully Navigate Work, Love and Life As A Powerful Woman

An Interview With Ming Zhao

Be humble: Take absolute pride in your success but be humble about it and never forget to recognize and thank those who have helped you or are helping you along the way. You never know when the tables could turn.

How does a successful, strong, and powerful woman navigate work, employee relationships, love, and life in a world that still feels uncomfortable with strong women? In this interview series, called “Power Women” we are talking to accomplished women leaders who share their stories and experiences navigating work, love and life as a powerful woman.

As a part of this series I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Sejal Patel.

Plantkos founder Sejal Patel was inspired by the lack of skincare products for melanated skin, and became an expert in understanding ingredient synergies. She then looked to the Ayurvedic wisdom rooted in her Indian heritage and turned to her training as a pharmacist. Through this powerful fusion of Eastern plant-based medicine and Western clean science, Plantkos® (Kos, or “Kosha” in Sanskrit, means layer) was born.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood “backstory”?

I am the younger daughter of immigrant parents who picked up their lives in their early 40’s and moved from India to a small town in Central Illinois to give my sister and I a better chance at life. I was born into a middle class family where both my parents worked in the banking industry. Both my parents are colleague graduates and had always instilled the value of education in us. So when I moved to the US as a freshman in high school, it did not matter that I hardly understood or spoke English, I had to find my way to college, which I did by graduating high school with honors. After my Bachelor’s degree, I went on to pharmacy school and obtained my Doctor of Pharmacy degree. But going through high school in a small farm town of 1900, is where I learned the value of hard work and comradery. Many of my classmates would wake up at 4:30am, do all their farm chores before coming to school at 8am. For two summers, I worked with them in the corn fields starting at the crack of dawn and knowing that work had direct results on how well the crop performed is a feeling I will never forget. My classmates never made me feel like an outsider, whether it was on the track and field meets, band practice, school play, homecoming dance or high school parties, I was always one of them.

Can you tell us the story about what led you to this particular career path?

My daughter. I never imagined myself a CEO of a brand in the beauty industry. Her diagnosis of pigmentary mosaicism lead me on the path of researching ingredients in her skincare products, which eventually lead me to taking a closer look at the products I was using. This is where I was able to use my education and training as a pharmacist and Indian heritage to better understand, why the needs of those with deeply melanated skin are different and why certain ingredients and their synergy work better for those needs. But there is a bigger issue I wanted to address and that is colorism. Growing up in India, advertisements for beauty products always featured light skinned and flawless Bollywood actresses and models and skincare products primarily focused on how to lighten your skin. That didn’t represent me and made me feel like I didn’t belong. My daughter’s skin condition made me fear the same for her, but we are raising her to be a strong and confident person where the appearance of her skin is not even a topic of conversation. To celebrate her and show the beauty in the mosaic pattern of her skin pigmentation, we have incorporated those patterns in our packing.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

I started my career as a retail pharmacist at Walgreens and now here I am, a founder and CEO of a beauty company. I don’t think it gets any interesting than that.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

Whether it’s in business or in personal life, I’ve always trusted my gut instincts, hold yourself accountable and do something that’s out of your comfort zone. For example, when developing products for Plantkos, I wanted to do clinical tests. However, rather than going through the traditional way of testing, I decided to use synthetically derived skin model. That decision was not very popular; however, I had a gut instinct that this was the best way to test and it turns out it is one of our biggest differentiating factors compared to other brands in our space. I’ve always believed that one should own their actions, hold yourself accountable — good or bad.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. The premise of this series assumes that our society still feels uncomfortable with strong women. Why do you think this is so?

Because until recent decade(s), the society has not seen women in powerful or executive level positions. But more and more women are taking a center stage and bringing about much needed change in society’s view of women. Adapting to change takes a while and until then the society doesn’t know what to do with us and that uncertainty manifests itself as an uncomfortable feeling.

Without saying any names, can you share a story from your own experience that illustrates this idea?

I don’t think I can point to just one single incident or situation because it happens too often and unexpectedly, especially when an idea and opinion that is contrary, but valid, to the “norm” is expressed.

What should a powerful woman do in a context where she feels that people are uneasy around her?

I don’t think a powerful man would ever have to answer this question, and that is what is unfortunate that a powerful woman would have to even think about it.(you can take this out if you like) I do not think a powerful woman should ever feel that she is making someone uneasy — because she is not. I believe if you are yourself and you treat those around you with respect, these situations are not likely to arise.

What do we need to do as a society to change the unease around powerful women?

We, as a society, need to normalize successful women rather than treating them like an anomaly. It should be a norm and not an exception. People are very comfortable around things that are “normal.”

In my own experience, I have observed that often women have to endure ridiculous or uncomfortable situations to achieve success that men don’t have to endure. Do you have a story like this from your own experience? Can you share it with us?

For women, after becoming a parent, our commitment to work or professional career is always questioned — but this is almost never the case for men. I too, experienced this early in my career.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by women leaders that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?

Not being taken seriously, especially when expressing an alternate opinion in presence of male colleagues. A lot of time, these opinions are simply dismissed or viewed as combative.

Let’s now shift our discussion to a slightly different direction. This is a question that nearly everyone with a job has to contend with. Was it difficult to fit your personal and family life into your business and career? For the benefit of our readers, can you articulate precisely what the struggle was?

It is still difficult to juggle the two. The biggest struggle for me was and still is, letting go of the guilt — the perceived guilt that you are not being a good mother or wife if you miss a game or recital or preparing a home cooked meal or any other mother/wife responsibility due to a work commitment.

What was a tipping point that helped you achieve a greater balance or greater equilibrium between your work life and personal life? What did you do to reach this equilibrium?

I think this is an on-going process. There are days or weeks where I feel like I’ve mastered operating both personal and professional aspect of my life and then there are days, I feel completely out of control. What helps me achieve that balance is help from my husband. He and I are 50/50 whether it is in running our business or managing our family life. It’s not perfect but it comes damn close to it.

I work in the beauty tech industry, so I am very interested to hear your philosophy or perspective about beauty. In your role as a powerful woman and leader, how much of an emphasis do you place on your appearance? Do you see beauty as something that is superficial, or is it something that has inherent value for a leader in a public context? Can you explain what you mean?

My philosophy about beauty is it is what you define it to be. For me it’s self-confidence and how you dress or look simply adds to it, but never defines it. And as our brand motto goes #loveyourlayers, I truly believe that when you love who you are, all the perfections and faults, that’s what makes you beautiful and powerful, unapologetically.

How is this similar or different for men?

I think powerful and successful men do pay attention to how they appear or present themselves. However, I don’t think they are judge on their abilities or competence to do their job based on their appearance but unfortunately, women are.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Powerful Woman?” (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Self-confidence: You must believe in yourself if you are ever going to convince someone else to believe in you or in your company.

2. Know when to ask for help: Whether it is in your personal life or in business, you cannot do it all, and if you want to succeed, you shouldn’t try to. Ask for help or guidance. For example, being a novice in the beauty industry, I have surrounded myself with experts in the industry, and I lean on them for guidance in helping make the best decision for the company.

3. Be humble: Take absolute pride in your success but be humble about it and never forget to recognize and thank those who have helped you or are helping you along the way. You never know when the tables could turn.

4. Know what you don’t want: This is my personal motto. I know more things that I don’t want versus those that I do — whether it’s in my personal life or in business — and doing so has helped me find a solution almost every time. For example, I knew what products and ingredients I did not want to use in my skincare routine, and here I am launching my own skincare line.

5. Family: I know it can be challenging to juggle a business and personal life, but it’s a must to keep those relationships strong. We make it a point to eat dinner together every night — this gives us a chance to come together as a family and do a pulse check on how everyone is doing. Success is even more rewarding when you have loved ones to share it with.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Michael Jordan. I immigrated to Illinois from India in the early 1990’s — Chicago Bulls heydays. My mom, dad, sister and I watched every single Bulls game on TV, and actually made it to two live games. In college I listen to the games on the radio because I didn’t have a TV in my dorm room. MJ created a way for us to connect as a family in a brand new country. But more so, I learned what great work ethic looks like (i.e. the flu game when Bulls beat the Jazz), what it means not to give up when others don’t recognize your talents (getting cut from his high school basketball team as a freshman) and most importantly when to walk away and come back — we all know the story here.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.